


Real Boy

by ChokolatteJedi



Category: Warm Bodies (2013)
Genre: Banter, Community: 1_million_words, F/M, Literary References & Allusions, Nurses & Nursing, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 23:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/pseuds/ChokolatteJedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nora realizes something about R and Julie</p>
            </blockquote>





	Real Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 1 Million Words daily challenge, 7/30 "Plethora"

"Hey, are you even listening? Hey! **HEY ROMEO!** "

"What? That's not my name," R replied before he realized what he was doing. He hadn't heard Nora speaking earlier, mostly because he'd been staring at Julie, but at that name he had suddenly snapped to attention. Wait, could that be his name?

"He doesn't remember his name," Julie filled in helpfully, but Nora wasn't paying attention anymore.

"Oh my god!" she gasped.

"What?" Julie looked around, concerned. R tried to look around too, but he was currently strapped to a medical table while they made sure his shot healed and that he didn't, you know, turn back into a mindless zombie. Of course, he had never really been mindless, but those kinds of distinctions, he had learned, were lost on Julie's father.

"It's like the story!" Nora was saying. "Romeo and Juliet."

Julie frowned, but stopped looking around for danger. "I don't-"

Nora started getting excited. "You remember, from school? Or the movie? There's like, a billion versions. You had to have heard of it. Two sides fighting, and then a kid from each side meets in secret and falls in love. And they all die at the end! Romeo and Juliet! R and Julie!"

Oh god, R did remember reading that in school. He wasn't positive if the memory was his, or from someone he had eaten, but it was there. Romeo and Juliet. The name even sounded good- no. No. He couldn't let Nora keep making this comparison. Then they might start calling him Romeo, and he didn't want that. R was enough for him. It was the name she knew him as; it was the name he liked. It was enough.

"We are not Romeo and Juliet!" Julie protested.

A flash of the ending raced through his mind and R did his best to smile. "Yeah, I'm already dead!" he offered in his cheerful-est tone. Both girls turned and looked at him. It was a look he was starting to classify as 'sometimes you shouldn't say things.' Fortunately, it did get them off of the subject.

As Julie shook her head, Nora continued. "Anyway, he's doing much better. The hole is closing just as you'd expect in any human. He's not one hundred percent back, but he's almost as real as us." she gestured around the infirmary. "Realer than the others."

"Good!" Julie slipped her hand into R's and squeezed gently. She was doing it more and more often, and he really enjoyed it.

"Hey!" Nora grinned. "Maybe we should call him Pinocchio instead! 'Cause he's becoming a real boy!"

Julie moaned, and her hand slipped out of his. "Okay, new rule; you aren't allowed to watch or read anything, ever again." She playfully shoved her friend.

R felt a little embarrassed, but also amused. It was taking him time, but he was re-identifying all of those feelings and sensations that he had been without all these years. There was no way to know when he had been turned - anywhere from eight to four years ago most likely - but they knew it had been a long time. R knew it had been a long time. But feelings like amusement and embarrassment were coming back to him slowly, and he appreciated the bad feelings alongside the good. Pain, embarrassment, real hunger... they were nothing compared to feeling love again.

"Speaking of becoming a human, how about Beauty and the Beast?" Nora said loudly, laughing. "No? Princess and the Frog? I've literally got a plethora of examples. Astroboy? I, Robot? oooh! How about the Little Mermaid!"

"That's it!" Julie stood up and started dragging her towards the door. Her voice was stern, but there was laughter on her face too. "I'm feeding you to a Boney!"

And for the first time in his memory, R laughed too.


End file.
